• 4 days ago
Ruud van Nistelrooy signed off with a convincing win in his final game in interim control of Manchester United. Rich Fay and Michael Plant bring their thoughts from Old Trafford.
Transcript
00:00Manchester United 3 Leicester City 0 here at Old Trafford in Drew Van Nistory's final
00:05game in charge on an interim basis. An important three points for United as we go into the
00:09international break, certainly with plenty to think about. But Rich, what did you make
00:12of the performance here today?
00:14I thought that it was a performance with a scoreline perhaps flatter than United by the
00:18end. I thought Leicester City wasted some chances but I do think United were good value
00:23for the win by full time. That attacking quality sort of shone through and that's what we've
00:27seen in Drew Van Nistory's interim spell, that the players have a little bit more confidence,
00:31maybe just a bit more of a clinical touch in front of goal as well. I thought in terms
00:35of players that Sean Ahmad again, for me he's undroppable at the moment and under Ruben
00:40Amirim it's going to be interesting to see if the formation does change. If it does I
00:43think Ahmad's got to be involved from the start. Ipswich away when we return from the
00:48international break. Fernandes as well, he got a goal, perhaps could add two. The second
00:52one was taken away from the dubious goals panel after it sort of hit his fine and hit
00:55the Leicester defender and went in. I thought today was potentially, after Fenerbahce actually,
01:01Manuel Lugate's best Premier League performance at least, his best home performance for United.
01:05Just kept things simple. I think we've been saying in the first few weeks, what does Manuel
01:08Lugate do? We're expecting big things from him once Amirim arrives and I think in that
01:12sort of midfield too, either with Kobe Mane or Casemiro, Lugate's just there to keep things
01:17simple, keep the ball ticking. He doesn't have to play those defensive splitting passes,
01:20that's what Bruno's there for, that's what Casemiro's there for as well. So Lugate looked
01:24a bit more confident at the right time and I suppose, Michael, the question is now, we've
01:29got Amirim Sott and his job as Manchester United head coach from Monday the 11th, which
01:33is tomorrow, if he has time for us. Man, this story, does he stay, does he go? It felt like
01:37a goodbye today for me. Yes, it did feel like a goodbye because at the end of the game he
01:41obviously walked on, applauded his players, shook hands and stood in the centre circle,
01:45applauded the whole stadium, which of course rang out to his name being chanted. He then
01:49walked down to the Stretford end, made a beeline really for behind that goal that he scored
01:53so many times in during his playing career, applauded the fans, seemed to wave goodbye
01:57as well. Of course, we're not sure what is going to happen with him in his future. He's
02:01been quite outspoken and said that he wants to remain as part of Ruben Amirim's coaching
02:05team, but we'll have to see in that regard. Amirim has confirmed his plans to bring in
02:08his own coaching staff as well, so we'll have to see in that regard. In terms of performance,
02:12I would agree entirely with what you said and I thought that Lugate was doing a really
02:15encouraging performance from him, kept it simple as well. In general, I thought the
02:19midfield played really good for United today. Not a convincing performance, I think there's
02:22still a couple of concerns, particularly about the form of Rasmus Voorlind, he looked
02:25really light, couldn't hold the ball up and Marcus Stratford still doesn't look interested
02:30in terms of his body language and so many issues for Amirim still to address,
02:34despite that confident 3-0 victory for Manchester United.

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